"Connections" has been touted as being the largest trade show in the cleaning and restoration industry. A layout chart of the hotel that was published recently showed only 20 exhibitors have reserved booths so far. Collectively, the twenty have rented 66 of the 260 booths available, if I understand the layout chart.
Attendance has been falling at such events for the past few years. We saw this trend developing ten years ago when we stopped exhibiting at Surfaces. Folks are just not traveling much these days due to erratic airline fares, rude TSA officials, high gasoline prices and the vast amount of information available on the internet.
At the last event I attended, an exhibitor looked at my badge as I stopped at his booth. He said, "Oh! I see you're a peddler, too. Not many "guppies" here are there?" It was obvious there were more sales types prowling the aisles than prospects.
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